


A Life in Progress

by LittleRaven



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Acceptance, Character Study, Costumes, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s02e06 Halloween, Fluff, Gen, Gen Work, Halloween, Happy Ending, Holidays, Triple Drabble, Yet Another Halloween Fic (BtVS)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 15:09:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21163670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/pseuds/LittleRaven
Summary: Buffy contemplates her first Halloween as the Slayer.





	A Life in Progress

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Highsmith (quimtessence)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quimtessence/gifts).

> This is meant to take place when Buffy's in her bathroom towards the end of the episode, before she comes out and has the scene with Angel.

The wig lay on the floor. Buffy wasn’t sure why she’d brought it back with her. She considered burning it. It wasn’t as if she was getting her money back; she doubted Ethan would want to repay her for the sub-par experience. Being beautiful cost more than she remembered it had. It felt like a punishment; she’d wanted a night to prove she could still be a girl, and instead gotten trapped in her own body watching it move. Watching it reject her friends, be thoroughly helpless. 

Not really Slayer-specific, she supposed, thinking of how it had affected more or less everyone else. That was no consolation. She should’ve been present in her own body to protect them. 

It was still wearing the dress, snug and bright against the skin. The cloth was less soft to the touch than it had been once made real, and of course now it was more wrinkled than any ladylike adventures or trick-or-treat outings could have gotten it. Her project was a mess. She giggled, grateful suddenly that it wasn’t anything else in her wardrobe. At least she hadn’t meant to keep this one. 

She owned prettier things, Buffy decided. A bit less fancy, maybe, but the costume was more an idea of fancy than it was a reality. She’d save fancy for the occasions which required it—prom was a little more than a year and a half away, so she didn’t have all that long to prepare; maybe she could revisit her older ideas for that, from when she’d had more time to think about it, and figure out the practicalities of needing to wear the nicest dress while guarding against the Hellmouth—and make cuteness out of what she had. Trickier than stretching her allowance, sure. 

Lucky she was a problem-solver.


End file.
